Computer games, video games, arcade games, and other forms of electronic games have advanced from simple games such as Breakout, Asteroids, and Space Invaders to complex, high-resolution games such as HALO®), published by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Wash.
Game developers must consistently provide new ideas, dynamic gameplay, or advanced graphics in order to keep game players, also referred to as gamers, interested in new games. In an effort to keep game play dynamic and ever changing, many games offer one or more multi-player options. Traditionally a single multi-player option allowed two players to each play a given game in single-player mode, and the player with the highest score at the end of each player's game wins. As games advanced, multi-player games began to allow players to play the game simultaneously, each controlling a character or event in a common game space or simulated environment. For example, HALO has cooperative multi-player mode, where each player controls a character, and the two players must cooperate to accomplish the game objectives.
Other known multi-player game modes are competitive in nature, while still allowing the players to engage each other in the common game space. For example, first person shooter (FPS) games such as DOOM®, QUAKE®, HALO®, and UNREAL® each have one or more multi-player modes where each player controls a character in the common game space, or simulated environment, while each player attempts to kill (also referred to as ‘frag’) the other players' characters. These types of multiplayer game modes are typically referred to as ‘deathmatch’ game modes.
Known multiplayer competitive game modes include the following: Deathmatch (original): Every man for him or herself, and each player tries to frag other players. Players may have a limited or unlimited amount of lives, and the game may have a limited or unlimited amount of time. When lives are limited, the last player still alive wins. When time is limited, the player with the most kills (frags) wins. Yet another variation is where the first player to have a predetermined number of frags wins.
Team Deathmatch Players are divided into two or more teams. Each player tries to frag players on other teams. The team with the most frags at the end of the game wins.
Juggernaut: Similar to Deathmatch, but one player, the juggernaut, has increased weapons and/or defenses. All non-juggernaut players try to kill the juggernaut. When a player kills the juggernaut, that player becomes the new juggernaut and the killed juggernaut becomes a non-juggernaut player. The winner is the player who is the juggernaut for the longest period of time during the game, or the first player to accumulate a predetermined amount of time as the juggernaut.
Capture the Flag: Players are divided into two (or more) teams. Each team has a home base where a team flag is initially placed. Each team attempts to infiltrate the enemy team's home base, capture the enemy flag, and return the enemy team's flag to their own home base. The first team to successfully capture and return the enemy flag wins (variation: the first team to successfully capture the flag n times wins)
King of the Hill: A small portion of the game space is marked as ‘the hill’. Each player attempts to control the hill by being the only player located within the hill's boundaries. The first player to control ‘the hill’ for a predetermined amount of time wins the game (variation: the hill moves periodically during the game).
Other variations of multiplayer games include providing only certain weapons during each game (e.g., only a sniper rifle or only a rocket launcher), or enabling or disabling certain game features (e.g., enabling or disabling a radar screen which indicates locations of enemy movement).
It would be an advancement in the art to provide a new multi-player game mode, and it would be a further advancement in the art to provide a new multi-player game mode for a computer/video game that can be applied to both FPS and non-FPS style games with rich feature enhancements.